This invention relates generally to clinical research and, more particularly, to network-based methods and systems for managing clinical research information.
At least some known clinical research entities conduct clinical studies with selected patients to evaluate the effectiveness of clinical applications and medical equipment utilized in the treatment of these patients. These clinical studies include the collection of a significant amount of data from a plurality of patients including at least one of a patient name, a patient sex, a patient medical history, a patient weight, a patient height, a patient age, a patient ID number, a modality of treatment and/or diagnosis, a type of medical application utilized, medical equipment utilized in treatment and/or diagnosis, treatment and/or diagnosis results, modeled images, x-rays, manufacturing information and documents relating to the medical equipment utilized, engineering information and documents relating to the medical equipment utilized, marketing information and documents, and other documents or information relating to the treatment and/or diagnosis of a patient within a specific clinical study. Historically, such data has been maintained in paper form. For clinical research entities that conduct multiple clinical studies with multiple patients maintaining such data in a manner wherein it may be effectively utilized by a plurality of people can be difficult and costly.
When conducting a clinical study, researchers at a clinical research entity may be required to review a significant amount of data in numerous forms and in numerous locations. The data relates to the patients in the clinical study. Managing this information such that it can be viewed in a standardized form is extremely difficult, time consuming, and costly. Moreover, sharing this information among others, including other researchers, physicians, radiologists, technicians, physicists, technical engineers, and reconstruction engineers, that may be located in a plurality of locations throughout the world, is extremely difficult.
By enabling a clinical research entity to better manage clinical study data, which includes placing it in a standardized format, the clinical study data may be more easily viewed and analyzed by selected persons which facilitates medical diagnoses, optimizes the use of medical equipment in the diagnoses and treatment of patients, and facilitates the production of next generation medical equipment and the optimization of clinical applications.